La Fete Sauvage

Album review

Yeah, it just wouldn't be a "wild party" without the music of Vangelis. Actually, Frederic Rossif's film, La Fete Sauvage, is translated into English as "The Wilderness Party," but it still doesn't scream out electronic space music. To accommodate the new environment, the first part of Vangelis' score incorporates some animal screams of its own, along with African drums and chanting to create a semi-electronic melange. While there are moments that are pure Vangelis (the opening theme, some spooky synthesizers, and disembodied percussion at the end), the first half of La Fete Sauvage is generally an uneasy tug of war between electronics and percussion. (Of course, even Patrick Moraz had trouble juggling the two.) The second part of La Fete Sauvage is a much different story; beginning with a lullaby introduced earlier (albeit briefly), this is the surfeit of flush emotion and elegant melody that shows the composer in full, confident stride. Although it's lovely, it does sound suspiciously like "To Dream the Impossible Dream" (from Man of la Mancha) after a while. Thankfully, Vangelis leaves the original theme to explore other, occasionally darker, avenues. While the second part of La Fete Sauvage seems to exist independent of the film, it is the more satisfying of the musical halves and would have felt at home on any number of Vangelis albums from the '70s. The director Rossif, who had enlisted Vangelis' services earlier for L'Apocalypse des Animaux, likely knew what he was getting from the electronic composer, and thus got what he wanted. No doubt Vangelis' score added intensity to the film by underscoring the savagery of nature. While the second half works well as stand-alone music and the first half provides an unusual (and thus interesting) setting for Vangelis, La Fete Sauvage isn't worth hunting down unless you're a Vangelis collector (and even then you may not be wild about the price, since this is available only as an import).

© Dave Connolly /TiVo